New to Dialogue? Here's what to expect the first time.
What Dialogue Is
Dialogue is a conversational AI platform used in your course. Depending on how your instructor sets it up, a Dialogue activity can involve voice, text-based feedback, and/or assignment submission, sometimes chained together in one flow (for example: submit a paper, defend it out loud, then get written feedback).
Getting Started
- Find your Dialogue activity. It will be a link or assignment inside your course's LMS (Canvas, etc.), just like any other assignment.
- Click into it. This opens your Dialogue session.
- Allow microphone access. Your browser will ask for permission to use your microphone. You'll need to allow this for Dialogue to work.
- Get set up before you start talking. See the checklist below, it takes less than a minute and prevents most of the common issues.
- Press Start when you're ready. Some activities have a time limit, shown at the top of the screen. You can mute yourself, and turn on captions (CC) if you'd like them.
- Have the conversation. Ask questions, respond, and engage like you would in a real conversation. Wait for Dialogue to finish speaking before you respond.
Steps and Ending
Some Dialogue activities have more than one step, for example, discussing an assignment out loud, then a separate text-based feedback conversation. If there's a next step, you'll see a Next button to move forward.
When you're ready to end a step, you'll get a confirmation ("End this step?") before it closes, so you won't end one by accident. When you're ready to end the whole activity, you'll see an "End & Submit?" confirmation. Take a look before confirming; once you submit, that's your final session unless your course allows retries (see below).
After You Submit
Once submitted, you'll see a short feedback screen:
- You can say whether the session went well or needs work.
- You can optionally add a note on what you'd do differently next time.
- You can download your own transcript of the session.
- If your course allows it, you can try the session again before it's treated as final. If you're not sure whether that applies to your assignment, ask your instructor.
Before You Start
- Headphones on
- Quiet space
- Google Chrome as your browser
(Full detail on why each of these matters is in the Environment & Setup checklist and the full Learner's Guide.)
What to Know Going In
- Your instructor can see the content of your session.
- If your course has attached a rubric, a score is generated based on defined criteria; that score goes to your instructor, not to you directly.
- Dialogue setups vary by course, so what it does in one class may look different in another. Ask your instructor if you're not sure what to expect.
If Something Feels Off
If Dialogue stalls, talks over you, or seems to respond when you haven't said anything, it's almost always fixed by headphones, a quieter space, or switching to Chrome. See the full Learner's Guide for troubleshooting steps, or follow your course's instructions for reporting an issue.